This invention relates to electronic commerce (“e-commerce”) systems. More particularly, this invention relates to systems and methods for providing suppliers' catalog information to purchasers and providing orders to suppliers.
Electronic commerce systems, such as Internet-based shopping systems, allow purchasers to electronically purchase products and services without having to visit an actual store or supplier facility. Vast quantities of supplier information may be available to purchasers or prospective purchasers via Internet-accessible database servers. Similarly, vast quantities of orders may be placed by users via access devices.
Because of the vast quantity of supplier information available on the Internet, it may be difficult for purchasers to find or identify suppliers that may provide supplies or services that meet the purchasers' needs. For example, purchasers may require that suppliers be located in a selected area, provide certain types of supplies, participate in certain sales promotions, or conform to consumer or industrial standards. Purchasers may also have a need for information related to the suppliers or supplies.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods for providing purchasers with information about suppliers and supplies that is organized around purchasers' needs and preferences, for receiving orders from purchasers, and for submitting the orders to suppliers.
Existing e-commerce systems that provide on-line ordering services to purchasers may provide on-line access to a limited number of suppliers or to suppliers offering a limited scope of supplies. Existing e-commerce systems may benefit from being able to offer purchasers a larger selection of supplies and a wider range of categories of supplies, but it may be costly to incorporate new catalog information if the new information does not conform to formats and protocols used by the systems. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide systems and methods for providing existing e-commerce systems with formats and protocols for incorporating catalog information from previously inaccessible suppliers and for placing orders for items and services from those suppliers' catalogs.
Searches for suppliers, supplier-related information, catalog information, or any other type of information may be slowed by processes required to extract information from databases, data transmission delays, and other uncontrollable delays. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide systems and methods for providing database searching capabilities that reduce interactions with remote database engines.
In some searches, purchasers may desire to find, sort, or group suppliers that conform to certain criteria such as distance from the purchaser, participation in a given sales promotion, provision of a certain brand or line of supplies, or certification by an independent organization (for example, a consumer protection organization). Such a search may be inherently slow because it may require a purchaser to search numerous databases, each of which may cause processing and transmission delays. Searching efficiency may be reduced because each database may require a different search strategy. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide systems and methods for categorizing information and incorporating it into preprocessing information lists for distribution to and local searching by purchasers. In particular, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods for categorizing suppliers using geographic criteria and providing purchasers with preprocessed supplier information for local searching using an access device.
When an ordering system manages large numbers of orders, it may difficult to “supervise” the progression of an order from initial reception, through internal processing, submission to a supplier, and fulfillment by the supplier. Purchasers, customer service representatives, and suppliers using user access devices may not be able to remotely “view” orders and related information as they enter the system, pass through it, or arrive at a supplier's warehouse without repeatedly downloading, information from a database server. Repeated downloading may be slow, inefficient, and may degrade a viewer's ability to analyze information on the user access device display. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide systems and methods for continuously updating portions of a display on a user access device without refreshing the entire display.
Sometimes, organizations may have systems for tracking expenses incurred while providing services to individuals, clients, or other organizations. When members of organizations (e.g., employees of a firm or company) order supplies or services on line in connection with, it may be difficult to track orders placed by a given member. This shortcoming may lead to losses in efficiency or abuses of the system. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide systems and methods of identifying or tracking orders placed in connection with a particular activity, function, client, or individual.
Some customizable items and supplies may be purchased using e-commerce systems. When purchasers select items and customized features for the items, it may be difficult for a user to envision how the item would appear as modified by the customization features. One solution is to display a different version of the item for each customization feature. The number of versions required increases rapidly as the number of possible options for the item increases. It may be cumbersome or impossible to provide different stock displays showing every possible combination of options for a given feature. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide systems and methods for “virtual assembly” of a customized item that receive item and option selections from on-line purchasers and dynamically illustrate items, as modified by any selected options, at each stage of the customization or assembly process.
When orders for customized items are submitted to suppliers for fulfillment, it is sometimes necessary to describe the item as customized using text. Items with multiple customized features or with customized features that overlap or intermingle with each other, such as the toppings of a pizza, may be difficult to describe. Such items may be difficult for a supplier to create or assemble in accordance with a description even if the description is accurate. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide systems and methods for automatically providing suppliers with graphically simplified illustrations of customized items (e.g., an “exploded view” of the linkages in an automobile transmission system).
When a prospective purchaser desires to participate with other prospective purchasers in ordering supplies or services via an e-commerce system, the prospective purchaser may need to perform a number of tasks. Necessary tasks may include informing the others about a prospective ordering event, providing them with information about suppliers or suppliers' catalogs, polling them for selections of suppliers or items, assembling all of the selections into a single order, submitting the order to a selected supplier, and following up on the fulfillment of the individual portions of the order. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods that automate some or all of the tasks that are necessary for using an e-commerce system to initiate, assemble, submit, and monitor a single consolidated order that includes orders from several different individuals or sources.
When an e-commerce system is used to generate sales for suppliers by facilitating sales to purchasers, an e-commerce system provider may receive commissions in compensation for facilitating sales. An e-commerce provider may facilitate sales for a large number of suppliers. There may be a risk that some of the suppliers will not pay due commissions. It may be costly to reduce the risk by researching the credit-worthiness of suppliers or taking measures to coerce payments from delinquent suppliers. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide systems and methods for automatically increasing the probability, at the time an order is placed with an e-commerce system, that commissions will be paid.